


unscathed

by AlasPoorYorcake



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, gaster did not come out of the void unscathed, i have become one with the thesaurus, undiagnosed/uncategorized mental illness, verboseness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlasPoorYorcake/pseuds/AlasPoorYorcake
Summary: AU. Sans took Gaster out of the void. He arrived... different. Living amongst his found family with a new (old) addition, Sans hardly expected things to be perfect.They're not. They may never be.And yet, when it comes to welcoming a new member of the family, every single one of them remainsd e t e r m i n e d .
Relationships: W. D. Gaster/Sans
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	unscathed

* * *

Gaster sleeps curled up on the floor in the living room.

Sans watches him with a soft focus, nursing a ‘raddest daddest’-stamped mug steaming with tea between his hands. Really, tea was always more Asgore’s thing, but for some reason Toriel always has a surplus in her cabinets and Sans has a suspicion it calms Gaster in some way.

The television screen is the only light bleeding through the room, a complex checkerboard of black and white static with too many moves being made at once too quickly to keep up with. Its cry is dull and occluded from worn-out speakers and though to Sans it fades into the background as easily as crown-moulding and unacknowledged corners of a house long lived in, Gaster still flinches at any interruption, like the static is one ungrammatical sentence he’s constantly struggling to parse.

“Stars are falling,” he grunts into himself, fingers scraping uselessly at the vertebrae of his neck, fervently enough to make Sans’ nape prickle. “Stars, cars, yards, cards, cards— chaos-chaos, chaos-chaos.” He cuts himself off with an inarticulate half-scream, frame shrinking ever smaller like he could fold the dimensions over himself, turn sideways, and disappear. “Prison, prison, me me me, none-two-three, free-free, free-free.”

Sans sets his mug onto the glass coffee table, noting Gaster’s flinch at the sound. Sans moves slowly, for all that his soul thumps urgency and concern, and kneels to Gaster’s side. Before he can think to ask for permission to touch him, Gaster takes the initiative and seizes Sans wrist, anchoring himself on it and dragging the rest of his trembling body into Sans’ lap. His skull rests at Sans’ sternum; he doesn’t so much nuzzle into Sans’ chest as he does press into him, hard. Sans lets him.

“you’re not there,” Sans murmurs to him, softer than the static, and hopes that even if the words themselves don’t sink through his marrow somehow, then the sentiment will stick anyway. “it’s gone, g. we’re gone. no going back.”

“Going back, go back— back, black, snap, crack— crackle-catch, freedom-freedom, free, free, freefall— the stars, the stars are— someone please, god, _catch me..!_ ”

Sans’ arms fold around him too easily, naturally, squeezing him tighter and smaller and impossibly closer. Gaster squirms; Sans holds firm. “i’ve got you, g. i’m right here, i got you. we’re here.”

Gaster merely keens in response, his head bucking into Sans’ ribcage in strangled desperation.

“i know, pal, but you’re out. you made it. i got you, remember? i caught you.” Sans rests a hand at Gaster’s neck, gently unfurling the iron-shackled grip of Gaster’s fingers, where the marrow is laden with silvery scratches and indentations. “i caught you. i promise.”

The television crackles louder for a brief moment, the equivalent of a pop in the fireplace. Sans reaches backwards without displacing Gaster, and plucks the remote, turning up the volume. Fanning the flames. Some of the ever-present tension in Gaster’s quivering shoulders eases, but he doesn’t stop muttering at a volume now too soft to make out. Sans doesn’t bother trying to puzzle out the words, just takes in the sharp consonants and moaning vowels and interprets the emotion making the air thick.

He spares one hand to rub circles at the base of Gaster’s skull, using the other to reach for his abandoned mug. The steam wafting up from it dampens his face, adding to the summer heat of the insulated house, and though he’s soon sweating bullets, the smell reaches Gaster and the pained murmuring smooths to a muted buzz.

It’s not long after the scent of flowers and morning dew and the imagined suffocation of thorns and chlorophyll and dust start to become too much for Sans when there’s a creak in the steps descending from the second floor. Sans barely glances away, enraptured in Gaster’s gradual decline into slumber.

An eternity-minute later, a skeleton hand thinner than Sans’ but less wiry than Gaster’s meets the mug, and Sans lets Papyrus take the tea from his tremulous grip. His brother’s movements are equally slow, yet as steady as they have been ever since Sans could remember. There’s a quiet disapproval in his receding footsteps, and an audible concern in the bustling in the kitchen. It’s so familiar it hurts, and Sans unwittingly relaxes into Gaster’s touch with the lull of his brother’s presence as emotional white noise.

As soon as Sans’ tension drains, so does Gaster’s, and within seconds the older skeleton is rattling quietly, bones trousling in the vague imitation of a snore. Sans allows his eyesockets to fall half-lidded, relief subsuming his exhaustion and slowly tugging him to the edge of his consciousness.

He stirs sluggishly when a different mug appears before him. He wraps fingers around it and brings it to his mouth, soul buzzing with sleepy gratitude at the sour pinch of ketchup between his teeth. He takes it in sips, mindful not to jostle the man asleep in his lap, and when he is done, the empty mug floats up and away, out of sight. Indistinct noises sound beneath the static of the television, and he notes them with a distant satisfaction to his paranoia.

He isn’t awake enough to register when Papyrus returns with a flurry of blankets and pillows to make Sans’ position healthier for his posture, if not comfier for all involved. He is only cognizant enough to reciprocate to Gaster when the older skeleton’s hands move against his ribs, spelling out something Sans only just began to decode these past few days.

_I love you._

Gaster and Sans sleep curled up on the floor in the living room, limbs intertwined as tightly as their inseparable affection for each other.

Off in the kitchen, lit only by the dim splotches of the stovetop lamp, Papyrus tuts the night away.

* * *

* * *


End file.
